Thrown Down (Made in Jersey #2)(29)

She would make it all better. He knew she would. Two years she’d waited for him while he completed his tour. That had to mean something, right? Maybe he wasn’t a waste of oxygen if River would wait, even though he’d left in the first place hoping she wouldn’t.

Go. Just go to her. She’ll heal you.

Vaughn didn’t know where the permission had sprung from, but he couldn’t move fast enough once it had been issued. He threw money onto the bar, all but diving from his stool—

“Vaughn. Welcome back.” River’s father appeared to his right, a strange expression on his face, as if he was forcing himself to be polite. But how the older man felt—how he’d always felt—was right there in his eyes. “Where are you headed?”

“You know where.” Familiar defensiveness stabbed Vaughn from the inside, but it was dulled now by greater tragedies than merely being disrespected. Life and death tended to put things into perspective, so he forced himself to soften. Even though River’s father had clearly loathed him from day one, almost to a confusing degree. Almost as though it went beyond Vaughn dating his daughter. “Look, I thought your daughter might move on if I left. She didn’t, though. She didn’t. And I can’t…I’m not a bastard who can leave her sitting somewhere, wondering where I am.” God, just picturing it choked him. “I’m going to do better by her—”

“You can’t.” River’s father picked up a cardboard bar coaster and tapped it against the worn wood. “You’ve burned all your bridges in this town. There’s no way for you to provide for her. You’re holding her back by not ending it, dammit.”

Vaughn’s lungs were on fire, but he had no choice other than to stand there and take the verbal beating. In some sick way, maybe he even wanted to hear it, knowing the sentiments were well deserved.

“I’m not a rich man, either, Vaughn. But I can give her something you can’t.” He removed a stack of folded papers from his jacket pocket, the top piece stamped with a county seal, just above an address he recognized well. A deed? “When she finally sees sense and goes to college, the way I never did, she’ll have a house to return to, if she chooses. A house. Can you give her that?”

Jesus. No. He couldn’t. In this town, you didn’t get handed property. It was passed down—if you were lucky—or earned through sweat or blood. He’d lived above an abandoned stationary shop with his uncle, sleeping on a pull-out couch. A safe, warm house was a dream to him—something to aspire to, but unrealistic. Could he take that opportunity away from River?

No. Never. Vaughn fell back into the stool and signaled for another drink, the world having gone dark around him. My life ends here.



Vaughn had only been asleep for an hour when the pounding on his motel room door started. He jackknifed into a sitting position and reached for his weapon, a move that had remained a constant throughout his three different walks of life. Street trash, soldier, security specialist. The coolness of Vaughn’s Walther PPS greeted his palm from its position on the bedside table; his feet landed on the tightly woven carpet without a sound. At least his sleepless night hadn’t robbed him of his physical abilities along with his mental ones.

Not entirely sleepless. He’d dreamed of the bar. The deed…and the gut-wrenching decision that had come after. If he wanted to earn River’s trust back—and he did, more than life—she needed to know what really happened that night. But how did he tell someone he’d lied right to her face, that he’d never stopped loving her—not for a single damn second—but in the course of trying to do the right thing, he’d inadvertently caused life-altering heartache on both of their ends? How did he confess to a lie that had left River a single mother, doing the hardest of jobs alone?

If River hadn’t hated him before, she would once she knew. He’d let outside forces keep them apart, when he’d sworn to her countless times he wouldn’t. At the very least she would resent him for making such a monumental decision without her consent, or even a conversation.

Vaughn shook his head to clear it of the debilitating memories and approached the motel room door, double-checking the safety was off as he went. Without moving the cheap polyester curtain, Vaughn peeked out through a gap—and found Duke staring back at him from the other side of the window.

With an irritated grunt, Vaughn replaced the safety and unlocked the door. “What the f*ck.”

“Good morning to you, too, sweetheart,” Duke returned, ducking beneath the doorframe to enter the room. “Nice digs.”

Vaughn shrugged. “Beats a sleeping bag in the desert.”

“Barely,” Duke returned, but they exchanged a look, ghosts from overseas floating briefly across their lines of vision. “How’s things with River? You two are the talk of the town. Will they rekindle their star-crossed romance or won’t they? Everyone is on the edge of their seats.”

“Were you always this much of a smart ass?”

“Yes.”

The bed groaned beneath Duke’s mass as he dropped onto the edge. When he merely crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow, Vaughn cursed under his breath. “Things are…good in some ways, complicated in others. I met Marcy.” He felt his mouth bend into a smile and didn’t bother trying to dampen it. Not the way he once might have. “She’s amazing. I wish I…”